Paul Gluckman

Revenue in BlackBerry’s Technology Solutions group increased 30.6 percent in Q1 ended May 31 to $47 million, said the company Friday. Sales of BlackBerry’s QNX embedded-software platform for connected and autonomous vehicles led the charge in that division, said CEO John Chen on an earnings call. “QNX continued strong year-over-year growth momentum with several new design wins.” One was for a “digital instrument cluster” for a major automotive OEM through BlackBerry’s partnership with Denso, he said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have permission to state the name of the customer, “ he said. “We are, however, very excited about this partnership win with Denso and the long-term business opportunity with both Denso, as well as the customer.” BlackBerry scored an additional QNX design win with Byton, the Chinese electric vehicle start-up, which has been described publicly “as a rival to Tesla,” said Chen. Byton has “global aspirations” and is targeting to make its car first available in China starting in 2019 and “go global from that point,” he said. China “is the largest and one of the fastest-growing electric passenger car markets in the world with a very strong government mandate,” he said. Byton unveiled the M-Byte SUV prototype at January CES, and previewed a concept Level 4 autonomous vehicle sedan, the K-Byte, at CES Asia (see 1806140002). The QNX design wins “reinforce” the “importance and success of our strategy to contribute at each level in the broad auto ecosystem,” said Chen. The companies in that ecosystem “all recognize the increasing importance of the safety and reliability capabilities provided by BlackBerry QNX software,” he said. Chen sees QNX tracking a “gradual” growth path in autonomous vehicles, he said in Q&A. “That doesn’t mean that we won’t hit home runs to give us a bump,” but the three-year plan for QNX penetration in autonomous cars will be of a “gradual nature,” he said.

Technology venture-capital firm SoftBank Vision Fund will invest $2.25 billion for 19.6 percent of GM Cruise, the General Motors autonomous-vehicle subsidiary, “further strengthening the company’s plans to commercialize AV technology at large scale,” said the automaker Thursday. GM also will invest $1.1 billion in GM Cruise when the SoftBank transaction closes, it said. SoftBank will invest its first $900 million when the deal closes and pay the remaining $1.35 billion when Cruise AVs are “ready for commercial deployment,” said GM. GM Cruise is testing AVs in Arizona, California and Michigan, including in San Francisco, where the subsidiary is headquartered (see 1707260030 and 1707250067). GM is on track toward achieving AV “commercialization at scale in the dense urban environment” beginning in 2019, and “safety has been and will continue to be paramount in our commercialization effort,” said CEO Mary Barra on an April earnings call.

The FTC should investigate “dangerously misleading and deceptive advertising and marketing practices and representations made by” Tesla, regarding its driverless technology, said the Center for Auto Safety and Consumer Watchdog Wednesday. At least two are dead and one injured as a result of the automaker “misleading consumers into believing its vehicle's Autopilot feature is safer and more capable than it is in practice,” they said. Tesla and FTC didn’t comment.

Nearly 75 percent of voters in California, Florida, Michigan and South Dakota wouldn't ride in a driverless vehicle, a Consumer Watchdog poll said Monday. “Voters want Congress to apply the brakes to robot car technology until it is proven safe,” the organization said. CW plans a news conference Tuesday.

Intel’s all-cash $15.3 billion deal to buy Mobileye last year (see 1703130015) was "one of our most strategic acquisitions we've made in quite a while now," CEO Brian Krzanich told Intel’s annual shareholder meeting Thursday. The purchase “is really focused on autonomous driving and really driving a scalable platform that is cost effective and includes a very different approach for how you take a safety-first, safety-centered approach to autonomous driving,” said Krzanich. “We now have these cars driving on the streets and you'll continue to see more and more of the cars driving and partners signing up for Mobileye technology to carry us forward in the autonomous driving marketplace.”

The American Vision for Safer Transportation Through Advancement of Revolutionary Technologies Act (S-1885) is unlikely to get unanimous consent for expedited consideration, but there’s opportunity to attach it to a legislative vehicle this summer, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told us (see 1803230071). The FAA budget bill is one possibility, he said.

Nvidia sees autonomous driving as a $60 billion “addressable market opportunity” by 2035, said Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress on a Thursday earnings call. “We believe that every vehicle will be autonomous one day. By 2035, this will encompass 100 million autonomous passenger vehicles and 10 million robo taxis.” Nvidia’s Drive Constellation virtual reality platform will help autonomous-driving developers “test and validate their systems in a virtual world across a wide range of scenarios before deploying on the road,” she said. “Each year, 10 trillion miles are driven around the world. Even if test cars can eventually cover millions of miles, that's an insignificant fraction of all the scenarios that require testing to create a safe and reliable autonomous vehicle.” More than 370 companies and research institutions are using the platform, she said. CEO Jensen Huang sees driver-less taxis going to market starting next year and self-driving cars “probably somewhere between 2020 and 2021,” he said in Q&A. The size of the market opportunity “is fairly well-modeled,” he said. “I believe that every single everything that moves someday will be autonomous or have autonomous capabilities.” The estimate of 100 million autonomous vehicles on the road by 2035 includes passenger cars and “the countless taxis, all the trucks, all the agriculture equipment, all the pizza delivery vehicles, you name it,” he said. ”Everything is going to be autonomous, and the market opportunity is going to be quite large, and that's the reason why we're so determined to go create that market.”

Waymo, Uber and other ride-hailing companies should publicly detail testing procedures and results for autonomous vehicles, Consumers Union said Wednesday. CU cited two recent collisions involving separate Waymo and Uber test vehicles. It said Uber reportedly determined a test vehicle killed a pedestrian in Arizona in March (see 1803230071) after its systems identified the person as a “benign object.” Waymo denied blame in a May accident in Arizona in which a swerving mini-van apparently crossed a median and collided with a test vehicle, said the group. “There shouldn’t be tests on public roads, let alone commercial use, until the companies have proven the systems are safe,” said CU Director-Cars and Products Policy and Analysis David Friedman. Uber is doing a “top-to-bottom” safety review of the program, working with former National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Christopher Hart on safety culture, a spokeswoman said. “Our review is looking at everything from the safety of our system to our training processes for vehicle operators, and we hope to have more to say soon.” Waymo didn’t comment.

Industry “can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” tweeted CTA President Gary Shapiro Thursday on the two recent autonomous-driving deaths involving a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona, and a Tesla driver in Mountain View, California. “Self-driving car casualties are tragic. But we shouldn’t stop improving the technology,” headlined a piece Shapiro wrote for USA Today. “Only an ongoing, transparent discussion will create the sort of framework that combines consumer safety, company accountability and flexibility to advance self-driving technology” and prevent accidents like those in Tempe and Mountain View “from happening again,” he said. The “safety and security that passengers have come to expect” from commercial air travel “didn’t occur immediately,” he said. “It took years of investment and years of missteps to create the safe flight ecosystem we now have in this country.” Self-driving technology “has the same kind of potential,” he said.

Uber spokesman Matthew Wing emailed us Thursday that his company is declining comment on reports it reached a settlement with the family of Elaine Herzberg, 49, the pedestrian struck and killed March 18 by an Uber SUV in autonomous mode as she walked a bicycle across a street in Tempe, Arizona (see 1803190024).